PM Modi inaugurates museum on Indian cinema, meets Aamir Khan, Kangana Ranaut. See pics

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the National Museum of Indian Cinema in Mumbai on Saturday. The inauguration ceremony was attended by a host of Bollywood stars including veteran actor Manoj Kumar, Aamir Khan, Kangana Ranaut, filmmaker Karan Johar, Simmba director Rohit Shetty and Zero director Aanand L Rai. Poonam Dhillion also attended the event along with producers Nikhil Dwivedi and Mahavir Jain.

At the start of his speech, the prime minister invoked the popular line from the recently released film Uri: The Surgical Strike. “How is the josh,” he asked, drawing laughter and applause.

“Films and society are a reflection of each other. What you see in films is happening in society and what is happening in society is seen in films. This shows India is changing. Earlier, poverty was considered a virtue... Films were about poverty, helplessness. Now, along with problems, solutions are also being seen. If there are a million problems, there are a billion solutions,” he said.

He added, “Once only rich people from “tier 1 cities” could enter the film industry, but now artistes from tier 2 and tier 3 cities are getting a foothold on the strength of their artistic abilities.”

“Films used to take 10-15 years to get completed. Famous films were actually known for the (long) time taken for their completion... Now films get finished in a few months and in a stipulated time-frame. Similar is the case of government schemes. They are now being finished in a stipulated time-frame.” Modi said.

He also urged filmmakers to make films on history as well as science and innovation. He said, “Film personalities should tell youngsters, through social media, about their hardships and struggle before they made it big so as to inspire them, he said. “This will help our youth in their life-building, character-building and prevent them from going astray.”

“Films also play a big role in the growth of the tourism sector, which gives employment to even the poorest people, even ‘chaiwala’ makes money when tourism grows,” he said.

He also assured the film industry that effective steps are being taken to curb piracy and “camcording”. “A single-window system for obtaining permissions for film shoots and related matters are on the anvil,” he said. He also suggested that a global film summit could also be organised in India.

The prime minister mentioned that the museum has 30-hour-long digitised footage of World War II. With this, the valour of 1.5 lakh Indian soldiers who died in that war will be known to the world, he said.

According to a report in Times of India, the museum is built across two buildings -- a five-storey new museum building and Gulshan Mahal that is over a 100 years old. The museum will the take the visitors on a journey from the silent era of the Indian cinema to the current hi-tech studios.

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The museum has four halls named Gandhi and Cinema, Children’s Film Studio, Technology, Creativity and Indian Cinema and Cinema across India. It is also reported that a committee headed by the Central Board of Film Certification chief Prasoon Joshi helped upgrade NMIC. The museum is said to house artefacts, cameras, editing and recording machines, projectors, costumes, photographs related to filmmaking in India.

PM Modi had earlier met two delegations of Bollywood personalities. While a delegation of younger actors including Ranveer Singh, Vicky Kaushal, Alia Bhatt, Rajkummar Rao, among others, met the PM in Delhi, an earlier panel, which included names like Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, filmmakers Karan Johar and Siddharth Roy Kapur, was criticised for not including any women.

(With PTI inputs)

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